(Photo credit: epSos.de, used under CC BY 2.0)
Once upon a time, there was a little Christmas tree. He lived in a forest with his family and all his friends, the birds and the squirrels, the raccoons and the deer and the bears. He couldn’t wait to grow tall and touch the stars and the sky as his father did.
One day a snowmobile came into the pristine forest. There was a man and a boy in it. It stopped near the little Christmas tree and the boy said “that’s about the right size, father.” And the man said “ I believe you’re right, son.” And they took a saw and an axe and they cut the little Christmas tree down. Although the little Christmas tree was in mortal pain, after the first great cry as he left the earth, he made no other sound.
The man and the boy took the little Christmas tree home. There, they put him in the centre of their home and they dressed him in glorious stars and splendid trails of silver and gold that looked like lights from the night sky that his father had told him about. And they put an angel at his head and they piled gifts around his feet and they gathered around him and sang beautiful hymns. And he stood there, dying, burdened with their finery, and he longed for his beloved forest.
One morning they took all the presents away and a few nights later they took away his stars and his angel and the man lifted him up, opened the door and threw him out on the sidewalk beside some barrels. All night he lay there, becoming weaker and weaker under the stars and the night sky. As morning came, the stars faded and, in the cold light, as he lay in his garish tinsel, just before the garbage truck came, there were angels at his feet and he grew tall and touched the sky.
